Contributory Fault and Rape Convictions: Loglinear Models for Blaming the Victim

Abstract

The practice of revealing the past sexual conduct of rape victims in court trials was the issue which prompted this study. The primary objective was to model the effects ofjuror sex, victim stigma, and contributory fault on rape convictions using simulation data from 358 undergraduates. Contrary to certain previous studies, loglinear analysis indicates that information about a rape victim's past sexual conduct does affect perceptions of her moral character and judgments of guilt. But the explanation for those effects may be far more complicated than previously supposed. Attribution theory confounds three distinct questions in the decision-making process and is unrealistically mute with respect to the potential influence of culturally patterned expectations.